(no subject)

Was doing my e-mail at 6.30 last night when I suddenly realised I had a ticket to see the RSC perform The Canterbury Tales at the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth, starting at 7.30. I immediately shut down the machine, jumped up, ran upstairs for my ticket, pulled on my London 2012 fleece jacket, discarded it in favour of my light black one when I remembered how hot it was, transferred my cash, ticket and other gubbins from one coat to the other, and belted down to the bus stop.

Took the ferry over to Portsmouth and found there were no buses going to the Mountbatten in time for the play. Had no option but a taxi. The driver was wearing an England football shirt, so I asked whether he'd seen the England v Jamaica match in the afternoon - he hadn't, he'd been working all day, following the commentary on the cab's car radio - then we talked about the World Cup the rest of the way.

The play was superb, the cast brought Chaucer's pilgrims and the characters from the tales vividly to life just as I'd always imagined them. All of them were great, but Claire Benedict was outstanding - she was very sexy both as Symkyn's Wife and the Wife of Bath, and made a lively Pertelote too. The Knight's Tale was very moving and, unsurprisingly, the Miller's and Reeve's Tales were the funniest, both very well presented although I wish Alain and John had been kept as Geordies instead of being changed to Yorkshire lads.

At the interval, among the display boards lining the auditorium I spotted a Brunel 200 board and went over for a look. Among the leaflets on the table was a notice saying 'Please take a FREE book' next to three copies of Jules Verne's Around The World In Eighty Days. I couldn't believe it at first, but soon reasoned that this was the real deal and helped myself to a book.

Coming out of the theatre after, just past 10.30, walking towards the main road I saw a bus going past. Arriving at the bus stop I learned it had been the last :( It was uncertain whether the £7 I had on me would have got me a taxi back to the Hard, and there wasn't an ATM anywhere near (not that I wanted to increase my overdraft by another £10 anyway), so I walked and walked all the way to the Hard. Back on the Gosport side, I took a taxi home.

It was 11.30. My mother was still up, doing some last-minute packing. Before I went to bed she insisted I translate a thank-you letter for our Royannais hosts into French, and listen while she gave me the low-down on my duties while they're on holiday, like watering the plants and buying The News every day.

Woken just before six this morning by the parents getting ready to leave for Gatwick. I got up just long enough to say goodbye and crawled back to bed.

(no subject)

I will never make a chef.

This morning - for my first dinner of two weeks Home Alone - I roasted the whole chicken we had, as per my mother's instructions. It roasted beautifully; the fun started when it came to taking just a quarter for today's dinner (that chicken is meant to last me for 4 days).

Trying to cut off a large piece with the big knife always foundered against bones. Attempts to separate the thighs by hand to put in the freezer for later were soon abandoned as the bird, fresh from the oven, was simply too hot to handle. And I had to eat soon before the veg went cold (and BB was coming on the telly).

So I carried my plate with the veg on it through to the living room/dining room, then went back to the kitchen for the roasting dish. The chicken was too large for the dish, so the top third of the chicken was poking out at a 45 degree angle and the whole thing was dripping garlic and fat. Even carrying it through a tea towel, the dish was pretty hot to handle, so I was glad to arrive at the table...only to find there wasn't a place mat there.

But my Private Eye was there. I put the roasting dish down on that and let the Eye absorb the garlicky fat. (Fortunately, it was still legible after.) I wiped up the spats of fat I'd dropped en route then sat down, cut bits off the chicken and transferred them to my plate till I had about a quarter of the bird, and finally tucked in to Sunday dinner over BB...